On the 4th of November 2010, a Qantas Airbus A380 was rocked by a catastrophic engine failure minutes after takeoff from Singapore, hurling fragments of a turbine disk through its wings and fuselage in multiple locations. The explosion damaged almost every major system on the airplane, from the flight controls and fuel tanks to hydraulics and pneumatics. Faced with a barrage of diverse failure warnings and an airplane of uncertain integrity, the flight crew worked together to make a series of critical decisions that would get their enormous airplane back on the ground. And in the end, despite one curveball after another — including landing gear problems, loss of braking power, and an engine that refused to shut down — they not only landed the plane, but did so without putting a scratch on any of the 469 passengers and crew.
This was an amazing read. Lots of technical details, but clearly explained, and it's a fun story even if you don't understand every single detail (at least, that was my experience). I'm glad they...
This was an amazing read. Lots of technical details, but clearly explained, and it's a fun story even if you don't understand every single detail (at least, that was my experience).
I'm glad they kept the video feed going for the passengers, even though it showed something bad was happening — that was 100% the right call. And of course, I'm glad they made it onto the ground safely.
Glad to see the interest in this article! I've seen this making the rounds a bit further than the Admiral's previous articles, and it's good to see her getting the attention she deserves for her...
Glad to see the interest in this article! I've seen this making the rounds a bit further than the Admiral's previous articles, and it's good to see her getting the attention she deserves for her in-depth analysis and quality writing.
One side note (please label off-topic): Could this please be moved to ~transport? This article fits equally well there or in ~engineering, but ~transport has been the home for all of the previous...
One side note (please label off-topic):
Could this please be moved to ~transport? This article fits equally well there or in ~engineering, but ~transport has been the home for all of the previous Admiral Cloudberg articles posted to Tildes.
This was an amazing read. Lots of technical details, but clearly explained, and it's a fun story even if you don't understand every single detail (at least, that was my experience).
I'm glad they kept the video feed going for the passengers, even though it showed something bad was happening — that was 100% the right call. And of course, I'm glad they made it onto the ground safely.
Glad to see the interest in this article! I've seen this making the rounds a bit further than the Admiral's previous articles, and it's good to see her getting the attention she deserves for her in-depth analysis and quality writing.
I'll leave my usual blurb here as well:
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One side note (please label off-topic):
Could this please be moved to ~transport? This article fits equally well there or in ~engineering, but ~transport has been the home for all of the previous Admiral Cloudberg articles posted to Tildes.